Public Service Journalism
Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team Projects
The most recent work from the Lee Enterprises Pubic Service Journalism Team
NATIVE AMERICAN POLICE SHOOTINGS INVESTIGATION
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POLICE DIVERSITY AND CAMERA USAGE PROJECT
In the summer of 2020, as the nation was reeling from weeks of protests following the murder of George Floyd, Lee newspapers in the Midwest launched a project looking at diversity in local law enforcement and camera usage. The team received data from about 65 law enforcement agencies.
For 2023, Lee, along with Type Investigations, a nonprofit newsroom, expanded the project to include departments in more sections of the country. Reporters reached out to more than 170 agencies that are in or near Lee newspaper coverage areas. The agencies are largely in the Midwest and East. We received 146 responses.
The data provides a telling snapshot of law enforcement for thousands of Lee readers.
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HUNTING CLEAN ENERGY IN THE WEST
This two-day report is the first in a series of articles by Lee Enterprises’ Public Service Team Reporter Ted McDermott about efforts across the West to meet looming deadlines to decarbonize the region’s power grid. Subsequent articles will examine hydrogen, wind and solar initiatives.
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BROKEN DEFENSE
Across the West, public defense systems face crushing caseloads, historic underfunding, structural problems and severe staffing shortages, imperiling criminal defendants’ lives and in many cases denying them their constitutional right to counsel. Defendants have lost jobs and homes, been pressured to plead guilty and been denied the benefit of exonerating evidence. People accused in more than 100,000 misdemeanors each year go to jail without ever talking to a lawyer.
Lee Enterprises’ West region Public Service Journalism team and local reporters attended more than a dozen court hearings and interviewed more than 25 defendants, 40 attorneys and 25 experts to reveal public defense in many western states is broken.
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